Mammoth new Mariners video board will be largest in Major League Baseball

The massive new video board at Safeco Field. Courtesy of Mariners.com.

The Mariners new video board at Safeco Field is incredibly massive. We’re talking 201 feet wide and 57 feet high for a grand total of 11,245 square feet, which is just slightly smaller than the Dallas Cowboys’ ginormous board. It’s now the biggest screen in Major League Baseball.

So naturally at GeekWire, we imagined what it’d be like to kick back on the field and play a couple video games on the new giant screen.

Turns out that it’s a possibility. Kevin Martinez, Mariners vice president of marketing, said that the team has discussed plugging in video games and it could certainly happen in the future.

The Mariners never did it with the old video board for non-game events, but Martinez said it actually happened in the Kingdome years ago — must have been the Nintendo 64 or PlayStation 1.

“Like the current screen, the new screen will be used for other events outside of Mariners baseball,” says Martinez. “As you might imagine, we are working through how we are going to program it for baseball games. Our focus right now is on providing more statistical information and more replay angles while working within the framework of what Major League Baseball permits clubs to display.”

He added that the team plans to integrate its social media platforms into the display during pre-game and inning breaks. The new board is a part of a $15 million stadium renovation going on this offseason.

But back to gaming — here’s my idea. The Mariners have a popular computerized hydroplane race between innings every game. Why not give three fans controllers — preferably Nintendo, since the Mariners are owned by the video game giant — and let them duke it out on the big screen.

What other video game-related activities would you like to see happen with the new big screen?

Taylor Soper is a GeekWire staff reporter who covers a wide variety of tech assignments, including emerging startups in Seattle and Portland, the sharing economy and the intersection of technology and sports. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.